


empty walls can't hear you scream, can't see you languish

by deepwater_swimmer



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Child Neglect, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Even if she is terrible at emotion management, Good Friend Robin Buckley, Lesbian Disaster Robin Buckley, Light Angst, Nightmares, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Post-Season/Series 03, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Worth Issues, Steve Harrington Is a Mess, Steve Harrington Needs Love, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Strictly Platonic Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:07:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepwater_swimmer/pseuds/deepwater_swimmer
Summary: Steve is no stranger to fighting. He has fought his entire life, especially on the past years. However, that doesn't mean he is any good at it, especially when the battle is against his own mind.Robin was born a genius. There is no point in denying it, she had always been terrifically smart. She was one of the best when it came to math, history, physics, english, languages, music. It was never the same for emotional intelligence.Robin has absolutely no idea why Steve Harrington became her best friend, but he really is the only one worth the title. Steve doesn't think anyone else could carry the struggle that is being his best friend, but Robin does an amazing job at it. After the summer of 1985, they share everything, or at least she thinks they do, and tonight might show her that it really doesn't roll that way.
Relationships: Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler - Relationship, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington & Steve Harrington's Parents, Steve Harrington & The Party
Comments: 5
Kudos: 70





	empty walls can't hear you scream, can't see you languish

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for giving this a chance, it's my first Stranger Things work, but I put a lot of care into it so I hope you like it!
> 
> Also the archive keeps messing up my tag order so fuck that

The high trees' crest danced feverishly with the strong October wind of Hawkins. Loch Nora's wide and illuminated roads screamed in silence in the dead of the night. 

It had become a routine for Steve and Robin to have sleepovers. The shift on the Family Video would be barely over and Robin would already be on the Beemer's passenger seat, drumming the rhythm to her mixtapes that had made home on Steve's radio. They would split their nights over their places, none of them really wanting to admit the real reason behind spending so many nights over. The lurking nightmares of underfloor basements, monstrous needles and a reverberating thick accent. Just like Steve doesn't like to admit Robin was completely the friend he had begged for deep inside his entire life, he also wouldn't confess to shaky hands, terrible retaken habits and profound longing.

The thick incompatible haze of sleepiness and insomnia wrapped Steve's bedroom in a stupor. Maybe it was the way his ceiling appeared to be spinning in intricate patterns or how heavy his eyelids felt or the now so constant discomfort on his insides. Maybe it was just the never ending rumbling of his mind battling itself. There were many possible reasons why he opened his big mouth without thinking about it before, why he let that torturous question slip up like an effortless sigh.

"Robin, do you think there is something wrong with me?"

If he hadn't said her name on the beginning of the sentence, Robin would have thought she wasn't supposed to have heard it, his voice barely above a whisper. Steve wondered if she had heard him at all, but the response was almost instant, the mocking tone laid below every syllable. 

"You'd have to be more specific than that because there a bunch of messed up stuff about you."

Robin thought for a moment that Steve had dropped the subject, the silence growing uncomfortably from their shared pillow. 

He answered so quietly that she wondered if he wished she would hear him at all.

"I don't know, it's just that sometimes I feel like no one can love me."

He could feel the pillow shifting below her head and her grey eyes now piercing his face. 

"What do you mean, dingus?"

Maybe if it wasn't so late. Maybe if he hadn't bottled this up so much. Yeah, maybe he wouldn't be telling Robin these stuff if he had a tiny little bit of self control.

"I don't know, it's just that no one sticks around, you know?" 

His hands meet just above his chest, tracing his fingers with a feather touch as he voices out deeply buried thoughts. 

"I mean, parents are supposed to love and care for you so much that they would take a thousand bullets for you, but I can't remember one time I wasn't alone on this huge house."

He can feel Robin pulling herself up the other side of the bed, no longer looking at him from their usual opposite position, heads meeting in the middle of the bed. She sits up, legs crossed, and Steve avoids her gaze by staring at his hoodie strings as though they are the most interesting thing in the world.

"But that's because they are working, isn't it? They are trying to provide to you." 

Robin was never good at this kind of conversation. Deciphering russian messages was one thing, but emotional talk was never her specialty. Steve had always been the sensitive one. 

"But it can't be just work. We've always had money Robin, I don't get why they would need to work so much." 

Steve knows that old money doesn't really mean anything if you don't work to maintain it, don't get him wrong he is not trying to be ungrateful, but something had always been out of place about that. 

He continued twisting the hoodie's strings around his fingers as he kept on, Robin's heart aching as she hears his answer.

"They think I haven't connected it, but they 'work' every Christmas time. Maybe they think I'm not smart enough to piece together their absence during holidays and the souvenirs from new places that appear some weeks later when they get back... Sometimes it feels like they don't see enough of a reason to try and stay."

Steve doesn't tell her about the things his father says, not only because those are bits that if you let out there is no taking back, but also he is pretty sure that if he voices a single one of them the night will be taken by trying to dry his tears.

Robin works the best with what she has, trying her hardest to make sense out of it, to find a way to stop making it hurt. She doesn't realise how insensitive she could have been till too late, after it had already left her mouth. 

"I don't know, Steve, maybe you are just overthinking it? I'm sure that they care about you."

It was never her intention to let Steve silently wallow in the hurt from opening up, but she had absolutely no idea on what to answer him, on how to comfort him. Robins knows that might be visible as she says it and a big part of her screamed at herself to shut up, to find the sensitivity inside and realise how she might be dismissing his pain. 

Still, Steve found himself caught in a dead end. Maybe they do care about him, maybe they really don't and there is no way for him to know it. There is no way to prove his point further because when it came to them Steve wasn't even dignified of an answer. For a lot of people Steve wasn't worthy of a heads up. For some people, the ones that mattered, Steve wasn't even worthy of an explanation, so it's no surprise he brings her up.

"Okay, what about Nancy then?" 

Once Robin had been informed of the basic business that went on with them, she had taken quite a distaste for the "Prissy". It isn't a big surprise her next question is filled with disdain, one that for a miracle someone wasn't directing to Steve. 

"What about her, Steve?"

For maybe the first time that night, he moves from his position, finding comfort in taking the pillow they had been using before to his chest as he leaned into the bedhead. Robin takes a worried notice of it before he continues on.

"She doesn't even acknowledge me anymore and I go by her house every single day. I mean, we spent the best and most terrifying year of my life together, Robin…" 

Nothing could have ever given away how hurt he still was by Nancy. That's the thing about Steve, there isn't really a way of finding out what's really going on in his head unless you nag it out of him and even if Robin had been his best friend for months, that isn't something she quite learned yet. 

Steve doesn't really know why tonight was the one he decided to let it all out freely, but that doesn't hold him from proceeding, voice breaking all over.

"She said she loved me, she made me believe it and it was all empty words. I don't know... I- I am a better person now because of her, but I don't know, it feels like now that I'm not pretending anymore, no actually likes me for who I am. And I thought that maybe if I was a little bit more like I used to be, someone would like me." 

The first tears come after he voices out his most buried belief. 

"I guess I'm just too pathetic to be liked."

The highly deprecating tone in his voice gave Robin goosebumps all over, worse than the ones she had locked into the basement of her nightmares. She only realises she said it out loud after it's over.

"You are being too harsh on yourself."

Perhaps he is, would not be the first time or the first person to do so. And perhaps because he knows she is right, that he is in fact being way too harsh to himself, his defenses build up and it's old Steve all over again. Lashing out at the ones who care because after all he can deal with neglect and scorn but care it's too much of an unknown, dangerous ground. 

"Am I really? This whole summer, I've been trying to get one person to like me, only one and no one from the entire county of Hawkins wants me." He huffs at the absurdity of it, the mockery of his fallen reign crushing what was left of him. "I just kept wondering what was wrong with me or if maybe I should restore the greatness of King Steve."

He does let a wet laugh out by that, yet it feels anything but funny. It makes the room heavier, almost as if that laugh had taken a big huff of air with it, leaving the bedroom more and more suffocating. Suffocating the words out of him, a desperate attempt to exchange his murderous thoughts for air. Steve is just so eager to get one proper breath he lets his greatest secret slip like fucking small talk.

"I don't know what was so great about him, if it was the hair or the clothes, or maybe I just looked better, leaner, taller- I don't know. I spent days wondering what could make me go back to that. And I tried, Robin, I really did. Every single thing that crosses your mind I tried." 

Steve knows that there is no point in hiding anymore, knows that now that is out it will viciously taunt him and easily bring him to his knees like it's been doing for the past months. He tightens his arms around the comforting softness of the pillow, hands very focused in his ridiculous wounds and voice dripping in poisonous self imagery.

"Maybe I should be trying harder."

He shuts up after that, breathes in the air he fought so hard for, wallows into his echoing secret.

Robin watches Steve play with the scabs near his knuckles and thinks. Connect the points. And maybe she should have known earlier, she has seen those signs before at school. Maybe it was true after all, that you only see the signs when you are looking for it. For God's sake, she was able to decode a russian spy message, but didn't put up together bathroom breaks and all the excuses for an upset stomach? 

Now, watching Steve shut himself in shame and fight so goddamn hard to not shed tears, she feels bad for mocking his little quirks, like the stupid obsession with that hat and his bloody hair. 

She couldn't have known though. How would she know that the reason behind his profound hatred for company policy was deeper than common sense? That maybe he cared for his hair so much because that was the thing he loved most about himself, maybe even the only thing. 

Steve probably didn't mean but he smashes the remaining of both their hearts as he breaks in the silence and lets it out in the most wavering tone Robin has ever heard.

"I guess... I don't know... Am I that unlovable Robin? Is there something so crippling wrong about me that makes people incapable of loving me?"

Despite the heavy atmosphere, it's still a surprise for both of them when Steve lets out an agonizing howl. He didn't know beforehand that would be the tipping point, that one single opportunity of being heard and paid attention to would be enough to open the faucets. He only knows that this terrible hefty feeling deep down his guts allows him to do only one thing and that's weep his eyes out.

It takes the second hiccup for Robin to get out of whichever trance she was in. It's hard to approach him when he is like this, she knows because she has seen it way too many times before. 

When Steve is too anxious he finds it grounding to press his feet together, a little intricate coreo going over and over again till his trembling ceases. It's safe to assume that his cocooning comes from the weight of oversharing, knees so close to his chest she doesn't see how it could be comfortable. The hands covering his tearful eyes are no news, but they still break her heart, he only does that when it pains too much to acknowledge his existence, trying to hide the exterior in order to hide himself. 

She addresses that first, carefully and delicately pulling the fists away from red eyes.

"Dingus, look at me?" 

Steve only answers by shying away even more and hiding his face into the pillow squished between his legs and his chest.

"Okay then, are you listening, paying attention?" 

The tiny nod is more than enough for a response. Robin breathes in deep and holds his shoulders as she starts saying it.

"I love you, alright? You are the bestest friend I have ever had." 

A very low sob wraps its way past his chest, the pillow, the elephant in the room.

"Those kids? They adore you, dude. Dustin probably has an altar of you somewhere." 

It's easy for his chuckle to turn into a whimper and as it does she wraps her arms around him. Steve just melts into her embrace.

"You are loved, tons of it, you've got believe me." 

He wants to shake his head. He wants to deny, deny, deny, but the truth is that he knows. He knows she is right, Robin always is right and that's what aches so much. Deep down knowing it is true and still somehow losing the fight against his own mind telling him it's bullshit. That it has always been bullshit. That he will never be anything other than bullshit.

"I'm just so tired of not seeing it."

Once again, he doesn't know if she will hear him, past the wavering of his voice and the safety of his pillow. She still somehow manages it, acknowledges it by hugging him tighter. 

He takes his head to her shoulder so she can actually hear him properly this time.

"It's a constant fight in my head, one part keeps remembering me about all of you, but the other is just so goddamn convincing."

He remembers when it first started, freshly new into Hawkins's middle school. Steve didn't know what it was back then, but the anxiety pumped through his veins as easily as blood. He remembers the feeling going away when, after working himself up for so long, he would throw up in the disgusting bathroom stalls. He remembers thinking that he could anticipate that relief if he just threw up earlier, just had to get through the discomfort of forcing it. He remembers thinning away, worrying teachers and counselors, but not his parents, never his parents.

It kept on like that till he found out basketball had the same effect, draining his cells from the jitters as if it was nothing. He built up after that, gained muscle back, got good at basketball, became the best at it, became the king. For some time, he didn't even care if he was loved, because he was _desired._ It was the easiest thing to ignore the forever lasting longing of his heart when he had the loud cheers, lustful looks, whispered praises and moaned reassurances. He could ignore the little voice telling him he was unlovable when he had a fucking reign. It wasn't so easy when that started crumbling under his first love, foul pictures, crimson pools and false hearted promises. 

Now, he didn't have basketball anymore. No kingdom. Only huge needles, heavy accents, grisly flowery monsters, missing, _dying_ kids.

Steve can't help but flinch once Robin's hands make their way through his hair. He feels even guiltier when her sigh resonates through the room.

"I didn't know you were hurting so much and I'm sorry I didn't realise, I'm sorry I bugged you about it." Steve notices he had never heard her voice tremble before. "I've probably made it worse."

"You didn't…" 

He hopes she sees how much he means it, how much he trusts her, not only right now but since the beginning of summer. 

"I just, I don't even know why I do it, it's just natural at this point."

It's sadly true. It comes almost as a second nature by now, Steve is just too deep into it to be any other way. He sniffles into the back of his hands, he knows Robin finds it disgusting but he couldn't care less right now. Apparently, she doesn't either since she only responds sincerely.

"It shouldn't be, Steve. It doesn't have to be anymore."

He hopes she is right about that too.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote the outline and most dialogue for this back in July 16th 2019, had already even drafted it here and then I never really came back to finish, so the draft was deleted (thank god I had saved somewhere else too). During quarantine, I picked it up again and I finished writing it yesterday. 
> 
> There might be a possibility for another chapter, but it would really come to my inspiration so I'm not gonna promise anything.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, comments and kudos are very much appreciated, they really make my day. 
> 
> My tumblr is @deepend-swimmer, if you would like send me a message there, an ask, anything. It's basically all fandom shitpost but who knows right?
> 
> Stay hydrated my dudes!


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